In the last few years the popularity of eBooks has exploded．The advantages are clear：You can carry as many books with you as you want．You can simply download every book you like and instantly start reading instead of having to wait for the book to arrive by mail．

    However，one thing hadn't changed．If you wanted to rent a book you were still forced to use hardcopy books．Until now that is, Amazon．com recently announced the start of a new program where you can rent eBooks．

Where to rent eBooks？

    As mentioned before，Amazon．com is the first and currently the only retailer (零售商) that has a program in place for renting eBooks． Luckily，Amazon is the largest online retailer in the world and their eBook assortment (分类) is massive．They are also the producer of the Kindle，the most popular Reader，which means you can be sure that the eBooks you rent will work．

You can currently only rent Textbooks．But this is likely to change as soon as word gets out that you can save money by renting eBooks.

Why rent eBooks at Amazon?

* Save money：Save up to 80% of the normal price of the eBook．

* Decide how long you rent：From 30 days to 360 days，you decide how long you want it．You can extend the time by as little as a day．Or simply buy the eBook if you want to keep it after all．

*Use any device：If you rent an eBook from Amazon，you can read it on your PC，Mac，iPad，iPhone，Android device，Windows Phone 7．Blackberry．or Kindle．

* Keep your notes：Do you like to keep annotations (注释) and highlights in your eBooks？Don't worry．You can always revisit your notes and highlights through Amazon．com．

How to rent eBooks？

    Simply search for the eBook you want to rent on Amazon．com and select the "Rent eBooks" option. After that，a new page will open where you can select how long you'd like to rent the eBook．You can read eBooks for a period of 30 to 360 days．

    You decide how long you need the eBook．If you later find out you need it for longer, you can simply extend the time．Or buy it for the normal price whenever you want.

    Once you've chosen the time you want to rent the eBook，you simply go to checkout．Or you can use the "Rent now" button．

    The universe looks like a pretty quiet place to live. But the universe is filled with dangerous things, all struggling to be the one to wipe us off the planet. Happily for us, they're all pretty unlikely, but if you wait long enough, one of them is certain to get us. But which one?

1). Death by Asteroid (小行星)

    Of all the ways we might meet our untimely death, getting wiped out by an asteroid is the most likely. Why? Because we sit in a universal shooting gallery, with 100 tons of material hitting us every day. The problem, though, occurs every few centuries when something big this way comes. If you could ask a dinosaur, I'd imagine they would tell you to take this seriously.

2). Death by Exploding Star

    When a huge star ends its life, it does so with a bang, which sends death spreading across space in the form of high-energy radiation. Many studies show that the bang would have to be closer than about 75 light years to do us any harm. The good news: no stars so close are able to do the deed.

3). Death by Dying Sun

    The sun is important to us; without it, we'd freeze. But the sun is also middle-aged, already halfway to running out of fuel, expanding into a red giant, and cooking us to a fine crisp. Even long before then, it'll warm up enough to raise our average temperature and cause a runaway greenhouse effect, boiling our oceans. Happily, that's a long time from now.

4). Death by Black Hole

    Black holes are misunderstood. They don't wander the galaxy looking for tasty snacks in the form of planets and stars; they turn around the Milky Way just like the hundreds of billions of other stars do. But it's possible that one could wander too close to us. If it did, planetary paths would be disturbed, causing the Earth to drop into the sun or be thrown out into deep space.

    Given that it could be trillions of years or more before even that happens, we don't have to worry too much about black holes.

    My advice? Go outside, look up, enjoy the sun, the moon, and the stars. They may be there forever as far as any one of us is concerned...and forever is a long, long time.

    A new study says electronic toys are not helping babies learn.

    "Even if companies are marketing them as educational, they're not teaching the babies anything at this time," said Anna Sosa the study's author.

    Researchers listened to audio(声音的) recordings of parents playing with their babies aged 10 months to 16 months. The researchers compared the experiences when the children played with electronic toys, traditional toys such as blocks, or when the children looked at books. What they found is that parents talked less with their babies when the babies played with electronic toys.

    Why is this important? Research shows that how quickly children develop language is often based on what they hear from parents. When the infants played with electronic toys, parents said little to their children. But with traditional toys, such as blocks, parents shared the names and descriptions of the animals, colors and shapes as their children played. There was even more information given by parents as their babies looked at the pictures in books.

    Of course, there is no need for parents to throw out electronic toys, but they should look at their infants' play with such toys as entertainment, not a learning experience.

    Toy Industry Association spokeswoman Adrienne Appell responded to the study. She said it is important that parents make time to play with their children. "Playing is a way that kids can learn so much, not only cognitive(认知的) skills, but social and developmental skills," she said. She added that play should be balanced, including time for just "make believe" activities, as well as traditional and electronic toys.

    Let's catch a glimpse of the latest inventions this year.

    Parallels lets you use desktop apps on your phone

    You'd think most applications would have created a mobile app by now — but many companies still use desktop apps exclusively. Now Parallels Access lets you access them on your smartphone. All you need to do is download the app, then connect Parallels' Applification™ to your computer, so you can access important files and other apps with a single click. You can easily use your apps in full-screen mode, using intuitive(直观的) touch controls to work faster than before.

    Usually, Parallels Access is $19.99, but you can get it now for $9.99.

    Take your lighting to the next level with this smart switch

    You probably don't spend a lot of time thinking about your home's lighting, but it's important: the way that you control your lighting affects the environment (and your electric bill).

    This WiFi wall switch is controlled via a companion app on your smartphone, so you can control connected lights or ceiling fans from anywhere.

    Usually, the Meross WiFi Wall Light Switch costs $45.99, but right now it's on sale for $39.99 .

    Shoot beautifully clear videos with this smartphone gimbal

    If you're interested in shooting professional-quality videos and photos, you don't have to spend a fortune to take a beautifully composed shot: just use this Rigiet Smartphone Gimbal instead.

    A gimbal is a support for your camera (in this case, your smartphone) that allows it to pivot（移动）, and automatically detect and adjust to the position that you want to film in. Unlike any other camera hardware you might own, this one comes with its own accompanying app.

    Usually, this Rigiet Smartphone Gimbal is $269, but you can get it now for $109.99.

    For all the technological wonders of modem medicine, health care-with its fax machines and clipboards (写字板) —is out of date. This outdated era is slowly drawing to a close as the industry catches up with the artificial-intelligence (AI) revolution.

    Eric Topol, an expert in heart disease and enthusiast for digital medicine, thinks AI will be particularly useful for such tasks as examining images, observing heart traces for abnormalities or turning doctors' words into patient records. It will be able to use masses of data to work out the best treatments, and improve workflows in hospitals. In short, AI is set to save time, lives and money.

    The fear some people have is that AI will be used to deepen the assembly-line culture of modem medicine. If it gives a "gift of time" to doctors, they argue that this bonus should be used to extend consultations, rather than simply speeding through them more efficiently.

    That is a fine idea, but as health swallows an ever-bigger share of national wealth, greater efficiency is exactly what is needed, at least so far as governments and insurers are concerned. Otherwise, rich societies may fail to cope with the needs of ageing and growing populations. An extra five minutes spent chatting with a patient is costly as well as valuable. The AI revolution will also enable managerial accountants to adjust and evaluate every aspect of treatment. The autonomy of the doctor will surely be weakened, especially, perhaps, in public-health systems which are duty-bound to cut unnecessary costs.

    The Hippocratic Oath (誓言) holds that there is an art to medicine as well as a science and that "warmth, sympathy and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug". There's lots of sense in it: the patients of sympathetic physicians have been shown to recover better. Yet as the supply of human carers fails to satisfy the demand for health care, the future may involve consultations on smartphones and measurements monitored by chatbots. The considerately warmed stethoscope (听诊器), placed gently on a patient's back, may become a relic of the past.

    The Winter Olympics is also called the White Olympics. At this time, many colorful stamps are published to mark the great Games. The first stamps marking the opening came out on January 25, 1932 in the United States for the 3rd White Olympics. From then on, publishing stamps during the White Olympics became a rule.

    During the 4th Winter Olympic Games a group of stamps were published in Germany in November 1936. The five rings of Olympics were drawn on the front of the sportswear. It was the first time that the rings appeared on the stamps of the White Olympics.

    In the 1950's, the stamps of this kind became more colorful. When the White Olympics came, the host countries (东道国) as well as the non-host countries published stamps to mark those games.

    China also published four stamps in February 1980, when the Chinese sports men began to take part in the White Olympics. Japan is the only Asian country that has ever held the White Olympics. Altogether 14, 500 million stamps were sold to raise money for this sports meet. Different kinds of sports were drawn on these small stamps. People can enjoy the beauty of the wonderful movements of some sportsmen.